The Art of Detection

Praise

“Sometimes a mystery takes one’s breath away with its impeccable, inexorable logic. King makes two such tales here, whose wheels interlock with a perfect, audible click. Kate Martinelli, homicide detective in San Francisco, catches a murder case in which the corpse has been found on the Marin headlands in Battery DuMaurier, an artillery site, now long out of use, constructed in the nineteenth century to guard San Francisco Bay. The victim is Philip Gilbert, a gentleman who had turned the first floor of his home into a perfect replica of Sherlock Holmes’ Baker Street. Kate’s involvement in the case is further tangled when a typescript turns up in Gilbert’s possession telling the tale (recounted in a voice sounding very much like Holmes himself) of a 1924 transvestite and her military lover, whose corpse was also found in Battery DuMaurier…. There’s also the opportunity to explore every facet of Holmes fandom, from the sublime and scholarly to the deliriously ridiculous. A tour-de-force and a great read.”—Booklist

“Bestseller King (The Game) meshes her two best-known series–contemporary police procedurals set in San Francisco featuring Kate Martinelli of the SFPD and the period stories of Mary Russell and her husband, Sherlock Holmes—to create an intelligent, satisfying novel of suspense. Martinelli is investigating the death of Philip Gilbert, an obsessive, avid Holmes collector (he’s even transformed his San Francisco house into a replica of 221B Baker Street), when she discovers what could be the motive: a previously unpublished story from Arthur Conan Doyle, told from Holmes’s point of view, a find that could be worth millions. The present-day narrative is interspersed with the purported Conan Doyle story, which resonates with the account of Martinelli’s own domestic live. A fine, perceptive storyteller, King is particularly adroit at capturing the milieus in which her characters reside. Fans of both series will be well rewarded.”—Publishers Weekly